As Covishield vaccine rolled out of Pune’s Serum Institute of India, its CEO-owner Adar Poonawalla described it as a historic and emotional moment. He also said that the company does not intend to make any profits out of the vaccines initially, but Covishield will be sold at a price of Rs 1,000 in private markets after the first 100 million doses.
“An emotional moment for the team at SII as the first shipments of Covishield finally leaves for multiple locations across India,” Poonawalla posted on Twitter with two photos – one with the entire SII team and another with the temperature-controlled truck.
Speaking to ANI, he said: “This is a historical moment that vaccine is being dispatched from our factory. Our main challenge is to bring it to everyone in the country. It is our challenge for 2021, let’s see how it happens.”
“We make 70-80 million doses every month. Planning is underway to see how many will be given to India and foreign countries. The Health Ministry has made logistic plans. We also have partnership with private players for trucks, vans and cold storage,” he said.
“To Government of India, we’ll still maintain a very reasonable price but it will be a little bit more than Rs 200 per dose which is our cost price. So we decided not to make any profit, we wanted to support the nation and government of India for the first 100 million doses,” he said.
After the first 100 million doses, Covishield would be sold at a price of Rs 1,000 per dose in private markets, he said.
(Published 12 January 2021, 11:47 IST)
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